


Sacrifice

by mountain_ash



Series: Things I Write on Tumblr dot com [22]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Hale Dies, Grieving Stiles Stilinski, Lydia is a Good Friend, Wakes & Funerals, burial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:19:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6379612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountain_ash/pseuds/mountain_ash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek was dead and it was Stiles’ fault. Not in that bullshit “he died for me” kind of way so many broken heroes cried about, but he had very literally given his life in exchange for Stiles’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> Originally on [tumblr](http://a-mountain-ash.tumblr.com/post/150099952285/more-mcd-sorry-sorry-i-think-i-wrote-this-for)!

Derek was dead and it was Stiles’ fault. Not in that bullshit “he died for me” kind of way so many broken heroes cried about, but he had very literally given his life in exchange for Stiles’.

A witch had taken him as an offering to an angry spirit and Derek had tracked them down as he always did. When his efforts to free Stiles had failed, Derek had fallen to his knees in front of Stiles and begged her to take him instead. Stiles heart stopped cold when the witch had smiled cruelly down at Derek and he watched in frozen horror as the werewolf’s body contorted painfully before dropping limply to the forest floor. His head rolled backwards and Stiles stared into his death darkened eyes as cold settled deep into his heaving chest. Only then did Stiles regain control of his body and he scrambled down across the pine-needle floor to fall at Derek’s side.

“No, no! Derek!” He gripped Derek’s limp face and shook it desperately before looking up at the witch, eyes crazed. “Why did you do that?” Stiles screamed. “Why did you agree to that? You had me!”

“Willing sacrifices are so much more effective than those taken by force.”

Stiles snarled up at her, hatred and grief filling every ounce of his being. “I’m going to kill you. I will hunt you down and kill you as soon as I know how.”

“Good luck, boy.” She answered, contempt emphasizing ‘boy’ so powerfully it sounded like the dirtiest slur imaginable. Then she turned and disappeared into the woods.

Stiles captured Derek’s limp, heavy torso in his arms and pulled him into a crushing embrace. Sobs shook his body and his fingers clutched at Derek’s hair and neck, seeking every tactile memory he had left to make. They hadn’t been anything yet, even though they had both known the other was their everything. Wasted time had brought them to this moment and now Stiles wanted to hate Derek for leaving him behind, but he had to save it all for the witch. He needed all of it if he was going to have peace. 

He sat there, desperately clinging to this last bit of contact until his tears ran out and his muscles were too tired to keep holding Derek upright so he simply leaned down until Derek rested in his lap. Stiles remained there, staring blankly at Derek’s face, willing him silently just to wake up as he always had until Lydia and Scott and the Sheriff appeared in the clearing.

Barely registering their presence, Stiles only looked up briefly when Lydia crouched in front of them before closing Derek’s eyes gently. The action forced a new sob from Stiles’ aching chest and he folded over Derek, cradling him protectively as if Lydia were a threat. She stayed in her place, kneeling on the forest floor and smoothing the hair from Stiles’ forehead. If she was crying, Stiles couldn’t tell and didn’t care. The emptiness that had once been Derek’s large presence was all he noticed.

Eventually a hand laid softly on his shoulder, so light it was as though it were scared to alarm him.

“Son,” his father’s voice sounded soothingly, “we should get him out of here.”

“Not yet.” Stiles spoke gruffly, his tone savage and broken. “I’ll never see him again if you take him now.”

“I promise I’ll make sure you can see him. Melissa will make sure you can see him.”

But they couldn’t make Stiles relinquish his hold. He had let go of Derek far too often to do so now. When the paramedics arrived to take his body to the morgue, Stiles screamed at them with a strength that burned from deep within his aching self. They tried talking him down but their words were blurred and meaningless to him and he struck out at them until they left and he thought he had succeeded. Stiles cried and screamed when two deputies tried asking him to release Derek and then pried his arms away when he refuses yet again and he was forced to watch the paramedics slip Derek’s limp body into a horrible black bag.

He wasn’t arrested for hitting the paramedics. Instead he was taken to the hospital where he was temporarily sedated and eventually put on an IV because he refused to eat. People visited him and put movies in for him to watch and talked to him and he had no memory of who they were or what he saw. All he could see when he slept was the witch killing Derek and all he could hear when he was awake was Derek begging her to use him instead.

“Do you want to go to Derek’s funeral?” He heard one day. It sounded like his dad but his hearing was still fuzzy so he wasn’t sure. “You’ll be able to see him.”

Stiles turned his head and he had been right. It was his dad. They sat there for some time, staring at one another.

“Do you want to go?” The Sheriff repeated.

He couldn’t make his throat work so he simply nodded.

Lydia and Scott got him ready. Lydia brushed his teeth and washed his face and combed his hair. Scott pulled him into his suit and tied his tie. They led him out to Lydia’s car where she buckled him into the back seat and drove away. He could do these things, Stiles realized slowly as his friends moved his body this way and that, he just didn’t know what things he was supposed to do when. His mind was still flickering between the memories of every time Derek had almost died and the final time he did, searching for some logic in why Stiles couldn’t wake him up this time. Desperate thoughts that maybe this was just a dream flooded his brain and contorted the world around him until he couldn’t make sense of what was real or not.

Stiles felt his body jerk forward as Lydia stopped and he looked up to find them in front of a funeral home.

“Why are we here?” He asked, his voice still rough from days of disuse and lack of proper hydration. He could tell that Lydia and Scott were looking at him disbelievingly but he couldn’t bring himself to care. This place wasn’t right.

“We’re here for Derek’s funeral, Stiles.” Lydia answered.

He shook his head furiously, confusion and anger twisting his face into something ugly.

“No! This isn’t what it’s supposed to be.” His tie was too tight and his breath came unevenly. “Who said this is what he wanted? Cora?”

Lydia shook her head. She maintained a straight face but Scott looked afraid and Stiles wanted to wring his neck for daring to be scared.

“We couldn’t find Cora.” Scott’s voice shook anxiously.

“This isn-this isn’t how it works.” Stiles continued to ramble as he ripped at his horrible tie. “Scott, you saw how he buried Laura. Did you all forget Erica and Boyd? This isn’t how it works.”

He yanked his door open and ran towards the church, stumbling numerous times on his unsteady legs. People were milling around the church and Stiles couldn’t recognize any of them. Couldn’t find one face that he was sure Derek had actually known.

“Who are you people? What the hell do you want with him?” The mystery figures pulled away from him as he walked drunkenly into the funeral hall, peripherally aware of Scott’s hand on his arm. A coffin lay open at the end of the aisle and he broke away from Scott and ran towards it, freezing when he reached the it’s edge and found Derek dressed in a suit and looking asleep.

“This isn’t right.” He sobbed quietly over the edge, exhaustion suddenly overcoming his mania and draining away his fight.

“He’ll be buried properly when everyone’s gotten a chance to pay their respects.” Lydia spoke beside him. “We’re going to do it right, Stiles.”

“No this isn’t right. I’m supposed to be in there. It’s supposed to be me. He was supposed to finally get to live.”

“Derek could never haved lived with himself if he let you die.” She answered softly, her hand on his elbow.

It didn’t help. The tears continued to fall and his shoulders continued to shake. He couldn’t bring himself to speak when it was his turn, and he sat in his seat and stared straight ahead of him as the other members of the pack spoke about Derek. His insides burned as all he could think was that the people that sat around him didn’t deserve to hear these things about him. How these people had done nothing to help Derek when his sister and family had died.

Stiles didn’t notice when the service ended and he continued to sit painfully still in his spot on the pew until his father sat beside him and placed a hand on his knee.

“Time to go, son.”

Deaton tried helping Stiles through the process of preparing Derek’s wolfsbane wrapping but as he started unbuttoning Derek’s shirt his hands began to tremor so badly they fell uselessly on his chest. Stiles couldn’t see him like this. It felt invasive and wrong. It was supposed to be Derek’s choice the first time Stiles saw him like this. He shook his head violently and backed up into the chair on the opposite wall, burying his face in his palms. The sounds of Deaton undressing Derek and wrapping him in the wolfsbane laced burlap grated at his nerves like sandpaper and Stiles’ pants were wet with his tear when the vet finally told him he was done.  

The Sheriff and Scott helped lower Stiles into the hole before passing him Derek’s tightly bundled wolf-form. His knees almost gave way beneath the weight, but Stiles managed to lower Derek carefully to the ground before he crumbled down beside him and made no indication of standing. He knelt there so long dark fell overhead and when he finally kissed the burlap where he knew Derek’s head was and brought himself to rise, only Lydia remained, sitting with her legs hanging over the edge of the hole. She helped pull him back up and out and together they shovelled the masses of dirt over Derek’s body and wound the wolfsbane spiral around the top of the grave.

Lydia slipped her hand into Stiles’ as they stood before the grave and then as if knowing his thoughts, she spoke.

“You’re not going after that witch without me, you hear me Stiles?” Her voice was hard and determined as she turned her luminous green eyes up at him and Stiles knew from the strength in her small form that she would go to the ends of the earth to help him find closure.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the feels <3
> 
> Comments always appreciated and come visit me on [tumblr](http://a-mountain-ash.tumblr.com/)!


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